


Touch

by orphan_account



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-09
Updated: 2014-11-09
Packaged: 2018-02-24 18:37:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2592047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>My headcanon for the Doctor and his Rose, providing an explanation for the events of Bad Wolf Bay. Herein there be sex.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Touch

(I)

                It wasn’t over until they were back in the vortex; it was their unspoken rule. He threw the lever that ended their adventure as Rose took one last twirl in her poodle skirt.

                “Some down time, ya think?” she said as she spun. “I’ll dig up some jimjams and you’ll let this daft old ape rest a bit before we set out again?”

                The Doctor didn’t answer. He stepped away from the console, slowly crossing the gap to where she stood, a few paces that could have been miles. Rose met him halfway, reaching out her hand to take his. “What is it, Doctor?”

                “Oh, Rose,” he said softly. “I am sorry. I am so, so sorry.”

                Her smiled broadened, turning quizzical. “What? What for?”

                He hesitated, just a moment, and seemed to come to a new resolve. He lifted his free hand to her face, cupping her cheek. He ran his thumb across her eyebrow, down her nose, across her cheek.

                Rose lifted her hand to cover his, nuzzling into his touch. “You saved me, saved all of those people. I’m alright. My face is right back where it belongs, see?”

                He let go of her hand. She expected an argument, a reiteration of his apology, a long rumbling rant about Time Lord priorities and swanning off. What she got was his other hand pressed to her face, and his lips pressed to hers.

                The kiss was tentative; soft and quick and passed before she recovered from the shock of it. He had kissed her before – but they were both different people then, him with a different face and her beset by the Bad Wolf. She had kissed him once, on New New York, but she was possessed by Cassandra and the silent agreement was that it didn’t count. No, this was more like that moment in Rome, when he was released from stone and kissed her out of joy from being alive.

                Their eyes met, impossibly close together, and she didn’t let herself think. She ran her hands up his chest to grasp the lapels of his jacket and pulled their mouths back together. Her response was every emotion she could pour into it; fear from 8 hours without a face, relief from rescue, pride of the Doctor, her Doctor. And love; always love.

                “I thought,” he said, pulling away, “that I’d failed you this time. I’ve put you into danger so many times, but this one – this one was the worst. And I can’t-“

                Rose silenced him with another kiss, as gentle as his first. “Shhh,” she whispered against his lips. “It’s alright. Really, we’re together and everything is fine.”

                His hands slid from her cheeks to her hair and were frustrated by her tight updo. He dropped them to the small of her back, pressing her against him. She leaned into him, each subsequent kiss a bit needier, a bit deeper. Their tongues met and stars danced behind her closed eyes; her breath came faster and rougher until he pulled away, giving her air.

                “I can’t-“ he started to say again, dodged when she tried the same silencing tactic. “Rose, you need to hear it and I just can’t say it. There’s too much, we’re too… I’m so…. and you’re so much….”

                She shook her head. “It doesn’t need to be said, Doctor. My Doctor.”

                He very nearly smiled, one side of his mouth ghosting up for a heartbeat. “Someday it will.”

                Rose reached behind to take one of his hands, pulling him along behind her down the hall. She wasn’t quite sure where she was headed to – anywhere but the control room – but was shocked yet again when he pulled her to a stop at the door to his room. He pushed the door open with his hip and leaned against the doorjam, half in the room and half in the hallway, watching her warily. It was as clear an invitation as he was capable of making, the clearest offer she would ever get. And he left it up to her, again, as he always did. Rose Tyler set the pace.

                Rose made it a point to look him squarely in the eye, matching his stare as they stood for several long moments in the hall. Using his hand as an anchor, she pulled herself back to him, to step into his embrace in the doorway. She kissed him again, her RSVP, and took a backwards step into his room, fingers still entwined.

                “Rose,” he began again, giving her an out. “You don’t have to-“

                “Yes,” she said, pulling at his hand. “I do. We both do. It’s been too long coming.”

                He smirked then, opening his mouth to remark upon the double entendre. She took his other hand and pulled him toward her, clutching his lapels and dragging his mouth down to meet hers. He reached for her hair again, making a frustrated noise in her mouth before settling his hands on her hips.

                Rose peels the jacket off his shoulders as he guides her backwards across the room to his bed. She can’t help but remember dancing in the control room, and how easily he led. His tie is unknotted and on the floor seconds after the jacket lands, and they both toe out of their shoes before her calves reach the mattress and stop their momentum. He reaches up to her neck, sliding his hands between the denim and her skin and softly lifting the jacket from her shoulders. She drops her arms for a moment, letting it fall, hearing it deflect and slide off the mattress to land on the floor.

                His hands returned to her hips, his new default it seemed. The zip to her dress was in the back, and his hands glided there slowly, interrupted by the Doctor’s near constant need to press her closer to him. His right hand rested over the pull and his left in the small of her back, and he waited.

                Letting her lead again. Rose smiled against his mouth and went to work on his shirt, untucking it from his pants and deftly popping buttons open from the bottom up. The top button free, she copied his procedure for removing her jacket and was rewarded with a shiver. His hands dropped to his sides, to let the shirt disappear into the darkness behind him, and by the time they returned to their positions on either end of the zip of her dress, hers were gliding over the zip of his trousers.

                His breath caught. They paused in their kiss, lips still connected but only just. Her breath rasped in her throat, and the tremble in her hands was unmistakeable. She wanted, badly, for him to take the lead but understood intimately why he would not. Opening the door to this room had been all the more suggestion he could make; he knew she would follow his every lead, the only way he could be sure this is what she wanted was to follow hers.

                Deliberately, she pulled the zip down one tooth at a time, the sound the only thing audible above her breath and the pounding of three hearts. He didn’t move, remaining as still as only a Time Lord could as she unfastened his trousers and then ran her hands under the waistband of his pants, his skin cool against her heat. It was only when she whispered, “Your turn,” that he resumed motion, his mouth moving against hers as he gently divested her of her dress. She moved her shoulders so that the heavy pink material hit the ground at the same time his trousers slid down his legs, and they stepped out of their clothes and to the side in a motion so smooth it could have been reheared.

                “Are you in my head, Doctor?” Rose asked with a grin, her hands making laps between his skin and the waistband of his pants. His hands were hovering over her back, close enough to raise all the tiny hairs but not actually touching.

                “Can’t help it,” he said brokenly, and she could hear the fight in his breath, knew how he struggled against the habits instilled by centuries of solitude. “Skin to skin contact only amplifies the connection, and it is intrinsic to Time Lord intimacy. The only way I can turn it off, Rose Tyler, is to walk away.”

                He pulled his mouth away from hers, his eyes impossible to read in the dark room, the only light streaming in from the still-open door. “I know you don’t want anything in your head, Rose, but I can’t be with you here –“ he brushed his hips against her lightly, and she smiled reflexively “-without being with you here,” he finished, tapping his forehead to hers. “Do you understand?”

                Rose slid her hands past the waistband she had been toying with to cup his bum with both hands, and pull his hips into full contact with hers. His breath hissed between his teeth as his hands crashed into her back to steady himself. “Yes,” she said against his mouth before gently biting his lower lip. “I understand.”

                Her bra was unclasped and pulled from her arms before she knew what was happening, the last of his reserve vanishing with her explicit permission. She managed to loosen his pants from his hips and send them sliding to the floor as he lifted her off her feet and gently laid her across his bed. She only had a moment to register the softness of the mattress – she figured him to be the type who slept on stone – and the plushness of the duvet before she was utterly distracted by his mouth.

                Everything he did on one side of her body with his lips, he mimicked on the other with his hands. He really did have clever fingers, devastatingly so. He started with the curve of her jaw, then down to her sternum and across her collar bones. He circled her breast, writing something in Gallifreyan that she knew he would never translate but was such an amazing feeling that she found she didn’t mind the mystery. She suspected he wrote something different on each side, but he moved down her ribs before she could focus on it.

                From her abdomen to the iliac crest to the waistband of her knickers, then down the side seams to the legs, circling her thighs with both hands while moving his mouth to the inside of either thigh. Rose fought to breath, struggled to stay in the moment, this impossible moment that she had long since abandoned all hope for.

                “Rose-“ he started to say again, giving her one last opportunity to stop this.

                “Doctor,” she interrupted. “Please.”

                The tiny bit of lace that was all that stood between Rose and her Doctor was eased off her hips and laid – with a surprising amount of care – at the foot of the bed. He kissed his way back up to her face, letting his chest slide across her body, forcing the skin to skin contact. She could feel him, then, in her mind. She had to think about it, but he was there – subtle, nonintrusive. But there. He felt almost natural – he was everywhere else, his hands running from her shoulders down her arms to clasp her hands, his torso pressed against hers, his thighs between her own.

                She shifted her hips, felt him already poised between her lower lips, couldn’t help but press against him. “Rose,” he said, this time a warning in his voice. He took a breath, started again, his tone softer. “Rose, there’s no going back from this.”

                “I don’t ever want to go back,” she said in reply. He hesitated again, just a second, and then entered her fully, mind and body.

                Rose cried out, surprised and indescribably pleased. He was everywhere. She could feel his arms around her body, his psyche twisting about with her own, and the warm velvet friction that was his sex. She could pick up, right from his mind, how she made him feel; the perfection of their fit physically amplified by the connection. He moved then, a tender grind that seemed almost experimental. The pleasure ricocheted between them, the joy they found in each other’s sensations multiplying exponentially. Rose clung to his shoulders and gasped for breath.

                She would never – could never – have this with any one else. Ever. She was ruined for any other man. Even if she wanted a normal life, to ‘go domestic’ as it were, she would always remember this. Sex with anyone else just didn’t seem worth it, not when she knew this was possible.

                He knew. He laid there, looking down into her eyes, and he knew. “I’m sorry,” he said gently.

                “I don’t ever want to go back,” she said again, and ground into him.

                He gasped, his eyes closing briefly while he struggled to keep control. “Rose,” he growled.

                She laughed, the only possible response to the overwhelming sensations she was floating in. She could feel his will failing, could feel his body trembling against hers. She could practically taste the lust in his eyes. She started to move again, and he pressed her hips into the bed to stop her.

                “Rose,” he said again. “If you don’t stop, I can’t-“

                “So don’t,” she interrupted, and ran her fingernails hands along his ribs. He twitched, his arm buckling, and she tilted her hips under him, a move she picked up in a self defense class a lifetime ago. They rolled, and it was all Rose could do to hang on as the move forced him against a dozen new spots inside her. She clenched her kegels and felt it from both perspectives, pulled herself up to feel the air hit the parts of him she exposed, rotated her hips as she sunk back down and reveled in the rebound of his thoughts against hers.

                “Rose,” he said again, this time in awe.

                “My Doctor,” she said in response.

                It became easier, every second. She could sort out which feelings were hers and which were his, if she really wanted to. But the mishmash of the two jumbling together was pure bliss. She leaned forward, taking his hands and holding them between their chests, grinding her hips in a slow circle that had both of them gasping within moments. She came much sooner than she expected to, and watched his eyes darken as he felt it with her, saw his jaw tighten as he fought to keep himself together through her ecstasy.

                She sagged against him, spent, and he loosened his hands from hers, wrapping her in his arms. As she fought to catch her breath, he was careful not to move, just the sensation of being inside her enough to drive them both crazy. He quirked an eyebrow at her as she recovered, and the ghost of a smirk was her only warning before – the muscle control the Doctor had was really remarkable – he twitched just slightly, tapping her interior walls, the headof his phallus dragging against the precise spot where all her nerves crossed like timelines.

                Rose felt like she had exploded. She sat up straight, instinctually, and her back arched as she orgasmed again, refractory period be damned. Before she could unclench her thighs, the Doctor sat up and gently spun her around, coming down on top of her. She locked her ankles around his back and clung to him as he nuzzled into her neck.

                “How much of this do you think you can take?” he asked, gently. Rose knew better; there was a laugh and a challenge buried in his words.

                She dug her fingernails into his back, eliciting a gasp from them both. “As much as you’ll give me,” she said, with as much bravado as she could muster.

                He laughed, and even that movement of his torso set off rippling waves of sensation for them both. He could feel her nipples against his chest, immediately tell the exact spot that was the most sensitive, the place on the underside of her right breast that needed a bit more stimulation, the nerve ending so near to the surface of her skin at her collarbone as to practically scream for attention. As much as she could feel him filling her, she could feel his femoral artery pumping against her thigh, pinpoint the exact place where moisture was flooding into her from an overload of hormones, feel every ridge and curve of her canal through the messages sent through his nerve endings.

                He quickly abandoned soft and slow, driving into her until her eyes rolled back and her toes curled. She lost all sense of time, succumbed to the feeling she was floating. She could see the emotion in him, a tight ball of iron, locked up as best he could. She didn’t know what would happen if it were to break loose, but she knew he feared it as much as she feared losing him. Disconnected, she felt the build of tension in his back and thighs, watched from his eyes as she writhed in front of him and he finally broke, spilling into her and collapsing into her arms. The reverberations of his orgasm launched her into yet another of her own, and their shared pleasure overwhelmed them both. Exhaustion welled up, multiplied as surely as the pleasure had been, and Rose was consumed.

                He awoke long before her. He blinked to recall where he was and how much time had passed; 32 minutes and 47 seconds of sleep. Rose was deeply asleep, so much so that he was able to carefully withdraw without waking her. The loss of connection, of contact with her skin, shook him as deeply as the establishing of it had shaken her. He immediately, desperately wanted it back.

                He tightened his jaw, slid out of the bed, and strode away.

                He’d ruined Rose, now. She’d never find contentment with anyone else, not unless she came across the same caliber of empath. And with the fall of Gallifrey, that was near impossible, especially on 21st century Earth. She was stuck with him now; he could only hope she didn’t come to regret it.

                But he, he on the other hand; he had to be kinder to himself. He had already resigned to the differences in their timelines; she could promise him her forever, but he could not return the sentiment. He would live to see her grave, and likely many more years (if not centuries) after. If Rose chose to tie herself to him, he would honor her decision. But bonding with Rose, making the connection permanent? That was signing a contract for torture in the future he knew was to come.

                He couldn’t withdraw from her; that would be too cruel. But he needed to solidify his hold on his emotions, protect himself from the impulse to bond with Rose. He had come too close, she had seen too much; she likely suspected what he was holding back. This night had been an impulse, but there was no way it wasn’t going to be repeated, not now.

                He washed up, redressed. Rose was sprawled peacefully in his bed, precisely where he had imagined her time and again. He gently folded her into the blankets, tucking a pillow under her head and the duvet around her shoulders, kissing her forehead. The tingle on his lips reminded him of the connection they’d shared, and he felt the wild need to reforge it again, to touch her and sink into her consciousness.

                He straightened, easing back from the bed and out the room, leaving the door open so she wouldn’t be confused when she woke.

                So much needed to be said. But not now. Not yet. Someday it would.

                She expected him to withdraw. She expected him to defer, to pretend it hadn’t happened, it hadn’t changed anything. When she woke up, alone, she immediately resolved to meet him wherever he chose to stand. He had given her so much – she couldn’t ask for more, not with a clear conscience. She gathered up her clothes and took the walk of shame – starkers – to her own room with her head high.

                But he didn’t. When she found him later on, he immediately wrapped her in a hug, offered her a cuppa tea, and kissed her on the forehead. Rose grinned at him, practically beaming with relief. “Rose Tyler,” he said, clipping the syllables with relish, kissing the inside of her wrist. “When you have suitably recovered, please know my door is always open to you.” He waggled his eyebrows at her, she laughed, and the potential awkwardness was past.

                But they didn’t talk about it. It didn’t need to be said.

               

(II)

                His head shot up as the door opened, Rose flying up the ramp into his arms, the orange spacesuit no deterrent. Joy, true joy, shot through them both. The suit prevented the skin contact they both craved, but it also made their reunion easier. He was able to compartmentalize the realization that his own personal concept of faith revolved around her, and she could swallow the knowledge her name was the last word on his lips before he plunged into the darkness.

                She shucked him out of the suit while he rang up the fleeing scientists, needing to verify everything was well with Ida before escaping into the vortex. It wasn’t over until they were in the vortex. The look in his eye as he grinned at her, “The Stuff of Legends,” made heat rise below her navel. He threw the lever on the console and she watched as his smile shifted, from simple joy to something more predatory.

                He lifted his hands to her face. “Rose-“

                “He was in my head, Doctor,” she said, falling into his embrace. “He was in all our heads. Can you make sure he’s gone? Can you help me forget?”

                Their fingers flew to buttons, jackets falling forgotten to the floor. Rose was divested of clothes in record time and lifted into the jumpseat. The Doctor immediately knelt before her, shrugging his shoulders under the curve of her knees and kissing his way up her thighs. Rose remembered belatedly his oral fixation, and fought to find purchase on the jump seat as his tongue made contact with her labia.

                The Doctor had waited a very long time to taste Rose. Far too long, by his estimation. He set in to make a thorough study of it; the skin of her legs, which was of course very similar to the skin of her breasts and abdomen of his previous experience. The crease between her legs and lips, the subtle differences proposed by the curly hair of her labia, the rich sapour within; each demanded his attention to correctly analyze and categorize what it was that made up the essence of Rose Tyler.

                Rose Tyler did not seem to mind his scientific approach. She dug her fingertips into the space between cushions on the jump seat and grasped clumsily at the tendrils of his mind she could feel hovering around her consciousness. As great as the sex was – and the Doctor was a master with his mouth, no lie – what Rose was craving was his touch on her mind, his cleansing presence, to chase away whatever demons the Beast in the pit may have left behind.

                “I thought you were dead,” she gasped. The Doctor redoubled his efforts; she was obviously not distracted enough. Rose arched her back and clawed at the jumpseat, but she couldn’t shake the memory. “Stranded without the TARDIS was bad, but it was gonna be alright because I had you. Stranded without you? Doctor…” she dragged his name into a moan, his tongue on her clit finally driving her near to climax. “Doctor, please….”

                He stood, suddenly, turning to let her legs fall to either side of his waist. She gasped at the break in skin contact, but then saw the look in his eyes and was shocked silent. He stepped out of his trousers, lifted her hips with both hands and pulled himself into her in one smooth motion. Rose lost control of her voice, arching her back and crying out wildly as the mental connection surged into place. He was desperate, as desperate as her, but she saw the need and fear sucked back into that iron sphere that he kept from her before she could examine it. She could taste herself suddenly, the hundred chemicals that combined to create the flavor that was Rose Tyler on his tongue, and she quickly sat up to kiss him and taste it on her own. The difference between the two was astonishing, his perception and hers, and she had a renewed appreciation for his tendency to lick things he came across.

                “Doctor,” she breathed against his mouth as he began to move against her in earnest.

                “I believe,” he said, eyes closed, fighting against the desperate need to turn their mental connection into a confessional. His words were broken, falling from his lips between thrusts, “I believe, Rose Tyler. In one thing. If only one thing. I believe in you.”

                The admission sent Rose over the edge, the Doctor tumbling with her. He collapsed onto her, legs giving out, and she collects him in her arms as they slowly sink to the floor, somehow finding a modicum of grace.

                “I’m sorry,” he started, face buried in the crook of her neck.

                “Shhh,” she replied. They were quiet for what seemed like a moment to her, far too long to him. He opened his mouth to break the silence and she pressed a thumb to his lip. “Thank you,” she whispered.

                “Rose,” he protested. “Rose, I can’t-“

                “I know,” she said gently in reply. “You don’t have to.”

                She watched him, in their minds, adding layer upon layer to the iron ball containing his emotions, where she imagined he stored his hopes and dreams. The message was painfully clear: he had to protect himself. She didn’t know from what, but could clearly see it wasn’t her; not really. He was terrified of himself, desperate to keep himself from making some kind of monumental mistake. He realized then that she was watching, felt the acceptance and patience in her mind and relaxed, if only slightly.

                He echoed her words. “Thank you.”

                Blankets seemed to appear nearby – Rose silently thanked the TARDIS, knowing the ship was caring for them both – and they slept that night on the control room floor. The shifting lights of the console gave the distinct impression of approval; the TARDIS had always been fond of Rose Tyler but she wasn’t even trying to hide it now.

                The Doctor waited until Rose was soundly asleep before breaking the connection, loathe to see the expression on her face were she to experience it while awake. She grumbled a little in her sleep, rolling over and reaching for him unconsciously. He found himself smiling, watching her sleep and holding her hand to his chest. It was getting easy now, too easy, to slip back into the connection. Any skin contact now gave him flashes of her mind, her mood. She loved him, with a fierce loyalty he couldn’t but admire. He was flattered, really; but that’s all he could be. All he could let himself feel. Especially with her here, naked on the grate of the control room, reaching for him in her sleep, smelling of sex and time travel. Everything else was locked away.

 

(III)

                It wasn’t cowardice, in the end, that kept him from answering her that day on the beach of Bad Wolf Bay. She told him, desperate for any trace of a connection, that she loved him. This was the moment, this was when it needed to be said.

                But he couldn’t. It was still buried away, far too deeply. He couldn’t get to it, couldn’t discover it in time to put the twisted knot of emotion into words. If he could have but touched her, she could have seen, could have _known_ , far faster than his stumbling gob could have enunciated. But he was just a signal, just an image; “no touch.”

                When she appeared on the street behind him, the light in Donna’s eyes filling him with the worst kind of hope, the kind born of desperation and the sort of regret only a 900 year old being can truly understand, _touch_ was his downfall. Finally, after all this time, he could put his hands on her skin again, surround himself with her love and revel in that connection he hadn’t made with anyone else.

                The touch came, but not how he wanted it. He was vaguely aware of Jack destroying the Dalek, but Rose’s hands were on him. Rose Tyler. His Rose Tyler. She was full of fear and regret, convinced she was about to lose him after travelling for so long just for this chance. His arm around her shoulders as she and Donna dragged him into the TARDIS was the sweetest agony; love and sorrow comingling in a coctail flavored with the essence of Rose Tyler.

                The regeneration was upon him and the knowledge that these hands would never again touch that skin – that she would be forced to look upon him again with _those eyes_ , the eyes that desperately wanted to see something other than a stranger – broke him. He saw the timelines spinning out of control and didn’t care; he bowed to a whim and channelled his regeneration into his severed hand. Jack’s Doctor Detector.

                For her. She threw herself into his arms and he made damn sure she heard the thought. For her.

               

                She could feel it from them both. The same tingle when their hands brushed, the tension in both Doctors whenever she was near. There were suddenly two of them, her Doctor. She felt like a kid at Christmas. She couldn’t help but follow Jack’s line of thought, although she pointedly left the Doctor Donna out of her own personal fantasy. That connection, doubled? The thought left her weak in the knees.

                But then she’s on the beach again, on the sands of Norway at Bad Wolf Bay. And while he’s leaving her again, this time she could touch him, could shake the confession out of him with just a little time and some access to his skin.

                He kept his hands in his pockets, kept his distance. His duplicate – the new new Doctor – hovered behind her. When Donna told her to listen to him, she spun, tried to absorb the truth they’re forcing on her. Her Doctor is leaving, with Donna, with the TARDIS. She’s to stay behind – again – but this time with his duplicate. Who just happened to be human. Rose put her hand to his chest, felt his singular heart pump against her palm.

                _No,_ she thought. Furious. _Not again. Not without saying it_.

                So she forced the issue. “The last time I was on this beach. The worst day of my life. What did you say?”

                “I said Rose Tyler.” He tried, desperately, to fortify that iron ball inside. She knew it. He wouldn’t take her hand, wouldn’t let her see.

                “Yeah? And how was that sentence gonna end?”

                “Does it need saying?” the words a slap to her face.

                Struggling to keep her countenance, she turned to his duplicate.

                He took her elbow, and the jolt of connection shocked her, coming through her jacket. He was forcing the link, giving her the contact the other had refused. His lips brushed her skin as he leaned in to whisper in her ear.

                “Rose Tyler,” he said. “I will love you forever.”

                He meant it. He had the same forever she did, and he meant it. But she could see that the other, the Time Lord who was furiously building walls against her, would have meant it to, had he ever been able to say it. He loved her, really loved her, and would carry that long after she was gone. He would carry a torch for her in the dark places of his heart for as long as he existed; Rose Tyler was immortal in his memory.

                She could see it, then. The crack in that coveted iron ball. She looked up at this new Doctor in shock, seeing the truth in his eyes. He would share it with her, if she wanted.

                Rose grabbed him by the lapels and crushed his lips in her own, and the new Doctor opened his mind to her, opened the dark corners he had been keeping hidden. He loved her, she knew. But the depth of that love shook her. And the reason for his fear: the long years of emptiness without her, were he to share even a fraction of the love that Rose gave so willingly. She could see everything he had ever held back; glimpses of a future she never could have had with her Doctor as a Time Lord, because if she’d known she never would have let him bond with her. She never could have willingly caused him any more suffering than her unescapable mortality already was. The depth of the pain he was facing after her death was a faceful of cold water.

                She broke free of the kiss as she heard the unmistakeable groan of the TARDIS dematerializing. She felt the comforting presence of the telepathic ship vanish; the last touch was more of a goodbye than either the Doctor of Donna had deigned deliver. Another slap to the face.

                She had wanted to tell him she understood. She wanted to thank him, although there weren’t words in any language for her gratitude; five seconds with his hand in hers would have been enough.

                As if he’d read her mind – and maybe he had – the new Doctor, _her_ Doctor, a man custom-made for her – strode forward and took her hand. The shock of the connection spun her around again, and she found herself staring into his eyes. Everything the other Doctor couldn’t give her, everything he had held back, this man could give. _Wanted_ to give.

                The walk into town was painfully long for them all. Jackie had managed to raise Pete on her mobile but zeppelin travel was far slower than the airplanes of their original universe, much less the TARDIS. They were to make their way to a little hotel in the town that sat a few miles up the coast from their beach; Pete was arranging travel for them but it might take a day or two.

                It took them the better part of an hour (57 minutes, 13 seconds, the Doctor dutifully relayed) and no one spoke during the walk, but Rose’s hand never left the Doctor’s. His skin felt different – warmer, more prone to perspiration, different texture to the hair – but his mind was everything she remembered and more. The years of missing her had left a definite scar in his psyche, and she could see how her absense had colored many of his decisions.

                He was putting a lot of effort into maintaining their connection. The skin contact helped, but without fully bonding with Rose he was having to continually maintain her mental awareness of him. It was exhausting – his human body didn’t have anywhere near the fortitude of his Time Lord frame – but it seemed to give Rose everything she needed. She was processing everything he gave her, accepting him as _her_ Doctor, already referring to the one who had left as _the other_ Doctor.

                They were standing at the desk of the hotel before either of them were aware they had stopped walking. Jackie was presenting a credit card to the clerk and making decisions for everyone. Rose caught her mother’s backwards glance at them, then the deliberate purchase of _two_ rooms. When they were given their keys, Jackie kept one set and handed the other to Rose, with a meaningful look at the hand that still clung to the Doctor’s.

                It had only just begun to threaten twilight; there were still many hours to the day, but Jackie let herself into her room, bidding them goodnight. “I’ll tell you in the morning what Pete has arranged.”

                The Doctor checked the number on the paper wrapped around the two room keys in Rose’s hand, and led them to their room, hanging the _Do Not Disturb_ sign on the door, locking the bolt, and wedging the door stop into place. He shrugged out of his jacket, laid it carefully on the inevitable desk chair every hotel room seems to have. Rose was standing at the window, her back to the setting sun, watching him.

                He had made her lead, always forced her to set the pace. But in the annals of their history, it was Rose who never left any doubt to how she felt, Rose who reached out, Rose who embraced love. The Doctor strode across the room, gathered her into his arms, and kissed her with every ounce of desperation he had kept bottled up. She was water in the desert, the wind at sea.

                She knew what he was asking, she could hear it in his touch. It had been so long for either of them; Rose’s fingers shook as she fumbled with the button of his trousers. He took her hands, lifted them to his head, threaded her fingers into his hair and let her cling to him, pull his face to hers while he slowly undressed them both. She took half steps toward the bed, pulling him with her by the magnetic draw of her lips. “Please,” she said, pulling him down to lay beside her. “Doctor. Please.”

                Her hands fell to his hips, pulled him toward her with four years of longing fueling her every move. He slid a knee between her thighs and cupped her face in his hands, holding her gaze steady with his.

                “Rose,” he said, using her name like a prayer. “I can’t hold myself back this time. And even if I could, I won’t. If you let me-“ he tripped on the words, struggled to avoid sounding crass. “If we do this, we will be bonded. Our minds will be inexorably linked. No going back for either of us.”

                Rose’s hands still on his hips. “There’s never been any going back for me, Doctor,” she enunciated each word carefully. “One heart or two, you’re the only one for me. Always have been, since the day in Henrik’s when you wore a leather coat and a different face. The question is, What do you want?”

                “I don’t ever want to go back,” he said, and she grinned at the memory.

                “What are you gonna do, then?”

                He slid his fingers to her temples, cradling her head in his hands. “I still need you to say it, Rose.”

                “I trust you, Doctor. You’re the only man I ever want in my head.”

                A grin ghosted at the corners of his mouth. “Good luck finding someone else who could.”

                Rose laughed, tightened her grip on his hips, pulled him minutely closer to her. “What do you want me to say, then?”

                “Say you want to be bound to me. That I can bind you to me.”

                “Doctor,” she replied, her voice husky. “I have always been bound to you. You are welcome to formalize it if you want.”

                The corners of his eyes crinkled as he laughed helplessly at her. “Cheeky,” he chided. Leaving the smile in place, he opened up their psychic link and slipped into her mind as their hips shifted and he entered her body. Rose gasped, her hands scrabbling up his back to find purchase on his shoulders as she clung to him, locked in his gaze. It was just like before, like so long ago; he was everywhere all at once, surrounding her and overwhelming her. But the difference – she watched as the iron ball of his tangled emotions dissolved and he exposed his inner workings to her. His desperate love of her, a hopeless infatuation that grew to be all-consuming and had to be buried in the name of self preservation. He’d carefully catalogued every second with her in his eidetic memory; the flavor of her skin, the smell of her hair, the precise way her tongue peeked out from between her teeth when she smiled, and every word she had ever uttered in his earshot, cross referenced against her relative mood and precise facial expression. She watched him replay the exact moment he knew his cause was lost, when they stood in the not-snow of the Sycorax ship and chose a destination among the stars, her fingers curled to her face and wonder in her eyes.

                And then his voice was in her ear, whispering syllables she couldn’t pronounce and didn’t have a TARDIS to translate for her. The swirling Gallifreyan word that appeared in her head went with it, she knew, but the meaning escaped her until he whispered it again in her mind. _His name_ , he said. He was giving her his name, imprinting it in the safest corner of her mind, where she wouldn’t remember and couldn’t possibly betray him with it. The circular symbol in her head that was his name unraveled into countless golden threads, and she felt them wind around her mind, reaching out to knot with the words _Rose Marian Tyler_ twisting about in the recess es of the Doctor’s psyche. A thousand knots, millions more, and she couldn’t see where she ended and he began.

                Finally, she was left with an image in her mind – a perfect replica of her love, her Doctor, all the way down to the mole on his back and his single beating heart. She could see precisely where she was touching him, how she felt to him, how he felt being with her, all clear as day.

                “It will be like that,” he whispered to her, “from now on. All you ever have to do is focus on me in your mind and you will know what I’m feeling. You’ll never have to wonder if I’m safe or if I’m near; you will always know.”

                She tentatively raised a hand to his chest and dragged a fingernail down his sternum. She could _see_ it in her mind, the line drawn down his nerve endings, feel him shudder and pull closer to her in her mind as well as against her skin.

                “It won’t be as – sharp, I suppose – when we’re not in bed together,” he said a bit wryly, and Rose found herself laughing again. It was all there – every second of every one of his 900 plus years, open to her if she deigned to look. She sobered, and deliberately closed the door to everything except his current state – his firing nerves, his fluctuating hormones and painfully exposed emotions. His eyes widened in surprise.

                “Thank you,” she said into his mouth. “But there’s no going back. The past brought us here, and I’m grateful for that, but we have to build something new now.” She pressed her hips against his, and his eyelids fluttered as if he’d been drugged. He ran his fingers through her hair and then down her back, wrapping his arms around her tightly.

                “Rose,” he whispered reverently as they both slowly started to move against one another. “My Rose.”

                He brought her to climax effortlessly, in the way long separations engender. They held perfectly still while she recovered and then started anew, he leading her back again and again until the rebounding sensations are too much and he stumbled over the precipice with her, his hands in her hair and her name torn from his throat.

                They fall apart, but the connection holds. There’s no rebound of sensations between them when they’re not touching, but the link is still there – she can concentrate for only a moment and feel the mattress beneath his body, know the window is cracked open and his back is quickly growing cold in the draft. She pulls the blankets up and over him before he can think to, and he realizes he’s chilled a moment after she’s tucked him in. “You caught on fast,” he smirked.

                She snuggled down against him, contented to let the exhaustion of the day draw her under.

                “Rose?” he asks, his voice a rumble in his rib cage against her ear.

                “Yes, Doctor?”

                “It needs said,” he said softly, and she could finally hear the fear in him.

                “I love you,” she said immediately in return. “I have always loved you. I will always love you.”

                It would need to be said frequently, she realized, and by both of them. Relying on their bond would never be enough, not for them. There was too much pain and uncertainty in their pasts for their new life to be anything but a long uphill battle, at least at the beginning.

                “Thank you,” he said in return. But in her head she heard it clearly, “I love you too.”


End file.
